


Poison

by Path



Category: Exalted
Genre: F/M, Humiliation, Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:27:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Essential Heavenly Litmus finds his work thrown in his face by his subordinate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poison

“Hm,” mused a musical voice. “I see your living conditions have improved not at all since last I visited, Litmus.”

Essential Heavenly Litmus, minor god of alchemy, jumped in surprise, fumbling the bubbling flask he’d been painstakingly boiling down, spilling it over his notes. He cursed as it began eating into the table below, grabbing a cloth to start mopping it up. He darted a glance over his shoulder at the intruder, and in turn fumbled the cloth as well, dropping it into the flame as he caught sight of the woman standing in his doorway, somehow managing not to trip over his wobbly stool.

“Gah! What are... didn’t I tell you you couldn’t just walk in here?”

The woman’s green lips curved in a smile. It was immensely unsettling. She slid through the doorway, letting it drift closed behind her, and looked around Litmus’ quarters with disdain for a few seconds.

“Oh,” she replied quietly, continuing her survey. “I must have forgotten. Did you tell me anything else important? I have so much on my mind.”

“I bet you do. What do you want, Silkworm? You don’t just show up here without reason.”

Gold Silkworm turned, green dress swirling gracefully with her movement. “One can’t just come to visit one’s... coworker, without an excuse?”

Litmus frowned, eyes narrowing. “Coworker? Get a promotion?”

Silkworm smiled, and Litmus caught the strain on her features. “I apologize. Did I offend you? I hadn’t meant to forget your rank.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he muttered. “So you’re... not here for anything? Just dropping in?”

“Not pleased to see me?” She brushed past him, and Litmus jumped back to avoid contact. She inspected his destroyed, smoking table.

“You shouldn’t really touch tha-” he blurted out; too late, as she dragged a perfectly manicured finger through the debris. She looked up at him with an amused smile.

“I might get hurt?” She laughed softly. “Come, Litmus, our purviews overlap enough that none of your little experiments are going to hold any danger for me, aside from perhaps the worry of catching my hem on the garbage you leave lying around your apartments.” She raised the finger to her mouth, gently biting onto it and letting her tongue drift across it for an instant. Litmus felt like his brain shut off, and belatedly realized he was staring. The green lips curved further. “A love potion in the works? Who was this for? Are you taking orders from the peasants, now, Litmus, or is this a personal experiment?”

“Uh... it’s...” Litmus shook his head, grabbing for sense. “-none of your business, actually. So, in the interests of having you leave me alone as quickly as possible, what can I do for you, Silkworm?

She flicked the last of the potion residue from her fingers, and Litmus leaned back to avoid it. “Well, while I _am_ surprised that you forget the niceties of small talk, I suppose you’ve never spent much time in Yu-Shan. Less nowadays, I understand, so perhaps it’s to be expected. Yes, Litmus, I have come asking a favour of you, as much as it pains me. It is not a large favour, and I am willing to negotiate for your assistance in this matter.”

Litmus considered, leaning back against the wall. It wasn’t often Gold Silkworm came in need of anything from him. Rather, she usually came to fling her own success or blackmail in his face. “What’s the favour?”

“One of the members of our department is not pulling his weight. I wish, as does Paralus-Sten, our esteemed supervisor, to amend this by taking some of his duties as my own. However, as my... direct superior within the Bureau,” she managed this without choking on it, “I will require your signature on the document. That it is required suits me no better than it suits you, I am sure, but as it is required, I will do what I must to acquire it. What do you require for this, Litmus?”

“Hm. I’ll have to think about it.” He turned away, moving to shelve a loose book. A second later, Gold Silkworm’s hand was on the book as well, pulling it back to the table. He looked down at it, green nails glistening, and then up to her.

“This is a matter of some urgency, Litmus,” she said, voice strained. “I will give you an hour to decide your price, no more, for I have _many_ such visits to make.”

“An hour?” He tugged at the book ineffectually. “That seems awfully efficient of you. You’d never know you spent so much time in Heaven.”

Her smile began to show teeth. “Perhaps your particularly terrestrial mannerisms have been wearing off on me.”

“Insults aren’t going to get me to sign your paper any faster.”

“And what would, Litmus? I don’t desire to remain in your presence for any longer than I must, so please inform me if there is some way I am unaware of that would assist with your cooperation.”

“...I’d like my book, please.” She held it another second, regarding it, before letting it go. He shoved it into its place. “You know, maybe if you played nice once in awhile, Silkworm, I’d actually want to help you.”

“Nice? It is not in my nature or my interest to be nice, Litmus, and certainly not to you.”

“No, but... well, maybe I just won’t help you at all, then, and you can try being nice next time.”

She slid around him, swift and silent as a lunging viper, trailing a green-nailed hand over his shoulders. Despite himself, he tensed, unused to the contact, a shiver running down his back. “And being... nice, to you, could get me my signature?”

“...I...”

She moved up against him, and he stumbled back into the wall. She matched his movements, surging forward and pressing her long body against his. One pale hand wove into his hair, blue strands turning green-white at the tips as they brushed her skin, and the other hand drifted down his chest, over his loose shirt, fingers splaying out over his crotch. He gasped, stiffening beneath her hand, and he heard her laugh.

“Wh- what are you doing?”

“Litmus.” Her voice came low and amused in his ear. “I know it must have been a long time- a _very_ long time- for you, but surely if you apply yourself you can figure out what I’m doing.” Her hand moved, long strokes brushing over his cock. Shaking, he pulled in a breath. “I beg you, don’t make me spell it out for you. It pains me enough to speak on your level as it is.”

“Why are you...” His cock was already tenting his trousers. He whimpered as her fingers wrapped around it. She was actually right, to his discomfort. It _had_ been a long time since he’d had the luxury of indulging with anyone, perhaps fifty years, and at least as long again before that. Foolish, really, to get sucked in so easily, he thought faintly. You never know what you’ve missed until you try it again.

She was speaking again, smooth words cutting into his thoughts. “... Playing nice? You know me, Litmus, and you know I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want. If you’re repressed enough that you and your signature come together, then I’m willing to suck you off to get it. I hadn’t imagined you’d be quite _this_ easy, honestly, Litmus. You moan like a mortal.”

And... yes, he was moaning, now that she mentioned it. He gritted his teeth and swallowed the sound. She was working the ties on his trousers, sliding her hand down to wrap slim smooth fingers around his shaft. Some convoluted, half-made sound shuddered out of him.

Silkworm chuckled again, pulling his hair back to bare his throat and ear. She licked delicately up his earlobe, tracing the curves, and he let out another muted cry. She stopped stroking long enough to loosen the laces on his trousers, dropping them to his ankles, before she curled her long fingers around him and began pumping. His hands splayed against the wall, gripping for balance, sanity, something.

“I wondered if it would come to this,” she murmured. “As much as you disgust me, Litmus, you are at least simple and easy enough to deal with. Lonely, debased, and low, perhaps, but easy, at least. I know that you will have had so little attention that this alone is enough for you. Where any god worth his position would dictate what he wanted, I can offer you scraps and you’ll take them. Because you've got nothing. And you've got no-one."

“You're... you're wrong," he choked. “I've got-”

“No, you're wrong. There’s nothing to you, Litmus. You’re barely a god at all.”

He was gasping, her voice inescapable and constant in his mind. He could feel himself flushing, probably vivid red against his pale blue skin. He was utterly hard, every stroke pulsing into him and yanking him a step closer to finishing. He was hovering on the edge, knowing any stroke would push him over, when she lowered her head to his shoulder. She pulled hard on his hair, arching his back, flicked with her thumb against the tip of his cock, and in the same instant, kissed deeply on his shoulder, just over the collarbone. He cried out and came, forgotten ecstasy leaping into his body as pain rushed into his arm, shivering uncontrollably and nearly losing his tenuous balance.

His voice, high in the empty workshop, trembled. Her lips worked against his shoulder. Dizzy, he slid down the wall.

Perhaps a minute later, a splash of something cold hit his shoulder, quenching the flaming agony pulsing through it with each heartbeat. His hair, hanging over his eyes, shifted to a soft warm white. He caught his breath, shuddering in relief, and looked up at last to see Gold Silkworm standing over him, still immaculate in her flowing green, looking utterly untouched by the chaos she inflicted on him. She dropped the now-empty bottle she held, letting it roll to a stop against a pile of books.

“Well, perhaps you are marginally less foolish than I believed,” she said. “If you keep a poison antidote made up. Preparation is the mark of a thinking man, after all.”

He stumbled over some sort of response. She smirked, and tossed him the papers as he mopped himself up, pulling his clothes back together. “Do you require further payment, Litmus?”

He rubbed his hands over his face, scruffing at his hair, trying to grab thought back. “Ambrosia’s all I need. A few ounces.”

“One ounce.”

“Three.”

“One. And I’ll stay away for another year.”

Litmus paused. “Deal,” and signed the papers, his signature sinking in and bonding, turning his hair violet-green for an instant, before it returned to its regular blue.

Gold Silkworm smiled, and drifted to the door. “I’ll see you in a year, if then. You shouldn’t need to report anytime soon, since I’ll be taking over the poisons aspect of your domain.”

Litmus, mind still reeling, focused on the page below. Yes, that was indeed his name in the body of the text. He supposed he’d feel worse about this if he wasn’t so... out of it. “You’re stealing part of my purview?” he managed.

She smiled glowingly, alight with true pleasure for the first time he’d seen. “Yes. And I won’t stop there.” She paused on the doorstep and returned to him for a moment, kneeling. Her glittering dress pooled around her feet. She placed a single hand on his cheek and raised his head, meeting his eyes with her liquid emerald ones. “Because you’ll just let me keep taking, won’t you? And no-one will help you, because you’ve made such a fool of yourself.” She rose, returning to the door. “Goodbye, Litmus. Perhaps you’ll luck out. They could make you into starmetal before the year’s out, and you may never see me again. We can both hope.”

The door clicked shut behind her.

Essential Heavenly Litmus blinked. He felt surprisingly untouched by her treachery. Well, perhaps he would luck out. And perhaps he wouldn’t wait the full year to report, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Essential Heavenly Litmus is our god of last-minute alchemy, and Gold Silkworm is our goddess of poisons brewed by the desperate. GODSEX


End file.
